reckless LJ spamming. I must be working at home.

[lagilman]

Writing. Laundry. E-mail. A couple of phone calls. More writing. Excitement R us.

My morning reading: Mental Mirrors: Special Cells in the Brain Mimic The Actions and Intentions of Others, Forming the Basis of Empathy and Social Connections (adapted from MIRRORING PEOPLE: THE NEW SCIENCE OF HOW WE CONNECT WITH OTHERS, by Marco Iacoboni, FS&G, on-sale next month). I'm not sure if this is just something I already knew, or the author is really good at explaining the topic (I suspect a little of both) but a lot of it seems "well, yeah, obviously" to me. Not uninteresting, but obvious. However, the combination of the article and some people-watching I was doing last night is making me wonder about the nature of competitive conversationalism a la nature vs nurture. If you show awareness/interest by involuntarily mirroring the confederate, is it the lack of mirror neurons that prevents you from doing that? Or is it also a learned social dominance game-trait? In other words, is the person who runs roughshod over you and refuses to return social cues missing mirror neurons in some capacity or another (a sliding scale from 'rude' to 'low-functioning autism,' for example), or can you have a full compliment of mirror neurons and still not acknowledge* the other person/people in the equation, either intentionally or through lack of what we like to call social skills?

It would be nice to say "oh, so-and-so can't help it, they're chemical that way," but I've always thought it was a bit of a cop-out. Maybe I'm wrong, and the cold and conversationally abusive among us need more help than Miss Manners can provide...

*not in the 'cut direct" way, since that's a reaction itself, but as though the person wasn't even there.

Or maybe I need more coffee. Yeah.



And a bonus photo, for those interested:

Coke bottle shown actual size.

Comments

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

OOOOH CUTE TINY COMPUTER! I WANTS!

[ferragus.livejournal.com]

D's got one and it's great, she did replace the word processor with something better (and free), if you have problems with it let me know and I'll get the details for you.

Hers is named "Mouse" as in EEE a Mouse! :)

Enjoy your toy!

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Answer: Maybe. Depends on the person.

But if the person is good at picking up cues on how to annoy you or hurt you -- it's not lack of mirror neurons.

[blackmonkeymage.livejournal.com]

Hmm: I zoomed in on the photo to try and guess what operating system you got, and it's giving me conflicting impressions. The window decorations look like Windows XP, but the taskbar has no Start button.

[lagilman]

It's a specifically-customized version of Linux for the Eee.

[blackmonkeymage.livejournal.com]

Cool.

I'd heard they were going to release a Windowfied version of the Eee, and I was wondering if the sort of person who wants an Eee would buy such a thing. And, uh, I was wondering whether to be happy or sorry for you on the subject of this computer.

The computer looks a lot cuter than I'd thought before. The keyboard looks all Maccy.

[lagilman]

They've done up a version of XP for the newer Eees, but I saw no reason to opt for it -- when running a stripped-down machine I prefer a stripped-down OS.

And I'm quite thrilled with Toke so far. He's never going to replace my laptop or desktop, but as a traveling machine the Eee is ideal.

[strigine.livejournal.com]

...*grabby hands*

I do not need to be reminded that the EEE is less than my prospective tax rebate, nosirree...

[onyxhawke.livejournal.com]

I'm of the opinion that the effects of will power/self determination are both under valued and almost impossible to study. Add that to the fact that the interactions between nature and nurture are really just starting to be studied and you've got a lot of the puzzle missing.

I suspect that the mirror cells may need to have a certain threshold of stimulation at a young age in order to allow people to function in an average range for 'social learning' and things like picking up social cues.

As for 'helping' the socially clue avoidant/deficient, for things like this (and i don't think theirs enough evidence to be conclusive, but what we have is modestly sound) I'm not sure we have the ability at this time to help them.

I was just reading another article on mirror cells a week or two back, it was fairly basic but what you're reading sounds interesting.